LA: How do you think that the trip helped you get to know yourself better and I guess gave you a new sense of purpose? As you look ahead into this new decade, what is the purpose of the next 10 years for you?
GU: Oh, I’m, like I’m looking the next 50 or 60. My great grandmother lived to be 110. Um, she was actually on, uh, Donahue back in the day on a show about centenarians. Um, so, I know what it is to live a long time and to live well. Um, that is what I’m- I’m looking for. I know the next 50 or 60 is just even more a self exploration and openness to- to evolve constantly. I don’t want to reach a destination of personal fulfillment or growth. I want to constantly be evolving and changing and I want to embrace every pivot. I don’t want to be nervous about pivots, I want to embrace every pivot, like dive in.
Because the most beautiful and amazing things happen when we dive into the pivot instead of fighting against it. Um, but it also, like we did African ancestry before we went and, um, you know, so I am [inaudible 00:24:12] and Fulani, the largest percentages of my African ancestry. And, um, my husband also has, uh, the bulk of majority Nigerian ancestry. So, it’s just inspired us to want to go back, um, and go to Nigeria and meet our people, probably without a camera crew. But [laughs] [inaudible 00:24:34]-
LA: You know, you don’t need it every time, right? [laughs].
GU: I- I am not a reality girl. Not, that is not my ministry. But I cannot wait to meet my people. I can’t wait to find more specificity in terms of home. Like, we knew it was West
Africa and now I want to be even more specific. Everyone’s like, “Oh, you’re going to go back for your 51st?” But we were just in Egypt last month. Like, you cannot keep us away. Like, we’re- we’re addicted now. And, um, yeah, the more, the more we learn, the more we want to return and we want to bring even more people. So, that’s the goal is bring everybody along.
LA: That sounds like a pretty good map to living well, as you put it. Gabrielle, thank you so much for chatting with me about your travels through the continent of Africa and how the docuseries came to be. It is a true joy to watch and I hope it inspires lots of people to start planning their own trips to Africa and traveling around the continent. And to look into their own heritage as well.
GU: A lot of the trauma that I have accumulated over my life. I had gotten divorced, I was raped at gunpoint, and I was struggling with my fertility. And I had been disassociating. That was all weighing heavily on my spirit. I knew I couldn’t sustain living in that way. So, I’ve always looked to the continent of Africa as the source of all things, including joy, including light, including levity. And I thought that the closer I got to self, I knew my joy and my peace couldn’t be far behind.
LA: We didn’t have time to talk about Kaavia’s fascination with the lion she spotted on safari, their nights out in Cape Town, or Gabrielle’s actual birthday dinner in Tanzania. But you can see it all in Gabrielle Union: My Journey to 50, which premiered on BET+ on June 15th. Thank you to BET for the clips.
Next week, we consider what makes a national dish. The answers may surprise you. We talk to James Beard, award winner for food writing, Anya von Bremzen, who visited France, Italy, Japan, Spain, Mexico, and Turkey for her new book, National Dish: Around the World In Search of Food, History and The Meaning of Home. See you then.
I’m Lale Arikoglu and you can find me on Instagram @lalehannah. Our engineers are Jake Lummus and Gabe Quiroga. The show’s mixed by Amar Lal. Jude Kampfner from Corporation for Independent Media is our producer.